Joel: My lines contain the surnames Mohlmann, Brormann (both with umlauts and from Badbergen and Mimmelage), Meersen (from Nortrup), Horstmann (from Tommern), Larberg (from Larberg), and Borgelt and Mohrmann (both from Epe). The Mohlmann, Meersen and Brormann lines landed in New Orleans and came up the Mississippi and then onto Havana, Illinois through St. Louis. The Horstmann and Larberg lines appeared to have done the same. The Borgelt and Mohrmann lines came through New York.
I just recently learned that many Germans came in through New Orleans. Can
someone explain why? New Orleans is so much further than New York, Boston,
New Jersey. Heide
During a time period shortly before the U.S. Civil War,
a) the major export was cotton, shipped from N.O.
b) Ships from Europe carried emigrants west rather than return empty for the next load of cotton.
c) Just then, mid-America was opening up. It took a while after the Louisiana Purchase.
d) Steamboats were running the Mississippi (and the Rhein)
e) Germany was becoming overcrowded, so many were emigrating.
f) Gottfried Dutzen's book was circulating in Germany.
Excuse me but what is "Gottfried Dutzen's book." I just read "The Lost
German Slave Girl" which is based on fact and is set in New Orleans in
1843. Heide
Heide,
I suspect the reference is to Gottfried DUDEN, who wrote a book ("Bericht
über eine Reise nach den westlichen Staaten Nordamerika's") about his visit to
the United States. He traveled from an east coast port (Baltimore, I think)
then via the Cumberland Gap to the Ohio River Valley, then via the Ohio River
and the Mississippi River to Missouri where he bought a farm. He was very
impressed with the US midwest, especially Missouri, and his book became very
popular in Germany and is considered to have been a major stimulus for
thousands of Germans to immigrate to the midwestern United States.
Many of the early immigrants chose to retrace Duden's route via the Ohio
rather than the simpler and quicker route via New Orleans and up the
Mississippi because of the influence of his book.
To answer your original question about why travel to the midwest via New
Orleans, in addition to the factors mentioned by Bob Doerr, a sea trip from a
German port directly to New Orleans was actually not much longer than a trip to
New York or Baltimore ... a matter of a few days. When the ship arrived at New
Orleans it was a simple matter to transfer to one of the paddle wheel steam
boats that took passengers and cargo up the Mississippi to any major city in
the midwest. From New York or Baltimore it was an arduous, expensive,
overland journey to the midwest that could easily take longer than the sea
voyage from Europe. Remember,there were very few roads (primarily dirt trails)
going west, and the railroads didn't go very far west until the last half of the
19th century. Historicly, using navigable rivers, if possible, was the
preferred method of traveling any significant distance for thousands of years
prior to the development of railroads.
Don Roddy
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